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Welcome to The Biztape, a show where we highlight some of the biggest hits in business. Whether it's discussing the latest market melody or the newest company with a great beat, hosts Brodrick Lothringer and Zach McDonald will cover all the latest business news, and determine if it's a hit or a miss. So, grab your headphones, it's time to rock out to The Biztape.
The Biztape
Adam Peek, The Packaging Pastor: Nuggets of Wisdom on Packaging and Podcasting
We've got Adam Peak, better known as the Packaging Pastor, on the show today! A Denver Nuggets fanatic with a journey that stretches from THE Colorado State University (AKA Harvard of the Rockies), to drinking Liquid Death in Utah and talking about all things packaging. But Adam is much more than a simple packaging enthusiast.
In this episode, we discuss packaging's massive global impact, touching upon sustainability initiatives, the marketing implications, and even the YouTube phenomenon of unboxing videos. Listen on as we dissect Coke's green initiative, analyze the social impact of plastic shopping bag bans, and appreciate companies that are acing the packaging game. Finally, we offer our perspectives on podcasting, the importance of a strong listener connection, and drop some hints about our next episode. It's a whirlwind ride into the world of packaging with the Packaging Pastor, and you're invited!
To stay up to date on The Weekly Biztape, then be sure to check out the link below. Need help with your own podcast? Then be sure to also click the link to learn more about PodPony, a full-service media production company that specializes in helping thought leaders tell their stories through podcasting.
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You are listening to the Weekly Biz Tape. Today's guest is Adam Peek, senior VP of Sales at Myers, author of Packaging Peeks and the Sticky Situation co-host and founder of the People of Packaging podcast, but you may just know him as the packaging pastor. In this episode, this Denver Nuggets fanatic is going to chat with your hosts Grant, mike and Broderick to discuss packaging's massive global impact, sustainability initiatives, marketing implications and even unboxing videos. With that, let's play the track.
Speaker 2:Are you guys super passionate?
Speaker 3:about packaging. I'll be honest, when I think of packaging, I think of like Apple and when they have like all the sleek design with everything and you open it up and everything's just like really nice and pretty. But that's because my wife appreciates it a lot and so she vocalizes it a ton.
Speaker 2:So how much do you actually care about aesthetics period? I've known you for a long time. You're more of a utility guy.
Speaker 3:I definitely fall more on the utility side of things, as far as, if you put it on a spectrum of what I would care more about, it'd be practicality over aesthetics.
Speaker 2:Which is crazy, because I'm not used for anything. I'm just here for looks and yet you keep me around, since I was like 15% reason. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 3:Wow, how about you, mike? What do you think about packaging or what comes to mind?
Speaker 4:I guess I don't know. I'm somewhere in between. Utility is big. I would like there to be a practical use for it, but I don't know. I'm pretty big on aesthetics too, so I don't really care about packaging as a whole. But if it looks nice, it's definitely going to leave impact on me.
Speaker 2:I mean, I know you care about aesthetics a little bit. You chose Apple Music over Spotify based on aesthetics, so there's some purpose in that for you.
Speaker 1:The utility is the looks.
Speaker 2:It makes you feel good.
Speaker 4:Absolutely. Yeah, ideally a hybrid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think that's kind of our guest today, someone who makes you feel good. Who could give way more insight, give way more insight into packaging than any of us can. Well, today I'm proud to present the packaging. Pastor aka Adam.
Speaker 5:Peake, I love the answers in the intro and I just wanted to jump right in and just be like and let me tell you that the packaging industry is about to rise up, and then I'm just going to baptize you and all that is packaging is going to be fantastic.
Speaker 2:I am so excited Not for the audio, only listeners here. They don't see that you are decked out in your Denver Nuggets get up. So my question is since you became a fan last night after they won, what's the ride been for you? Is it just this long-awaited beautiful thing or are you just going with it until next year's NBA champions? What's the mindset right now?
Speaker 5:Yeah, I really just follow whoever the best team is, honestly, and then I just root for them and I buy a jersey and I go on podcasts. So no, I have been a Nuggets fan since the late 80s. I actually started this is a funny story, but I started the Joe Wolf fan club in 1997, 98. The Nuggets won 11 games, or 11 and 71.
Speaker 5:And my high school buddies and I would go to the games and cheer for Joe Wolf, who was the worst player on the worst team in the country, and he turned out to be the raddest dude, like he took us to Denny's after a game once and would give us shoes. Then we started out making fun of him and then we just ended up really loving this person. And so it's been a long, long hard road as a Denver Nuggets fan and today has been a day of vindication and joy, and I don't care what anybody says, because the Denver Nuggets are the best team in the world. It's a pretty cool feeling that not many teams you know. It's crazy. Actually. I learned that there has not been a team to win the NBA championship from the Western Conference outside of Texas or California since like the 1970s.
Speaker 3:Two states have won three Western.
Speaker 5:every time the Western Conference team has won the NBA finals, they've been from California or freaking Texas, two states that nobody else likes outside of California and Texas. So we're representing for all the other states that are just like Colorado. We need something, so.
Speaker 2:I feel like California has kind of penetrated both Colorado and Texas since like the last five years, though. So was it. You know, was it the Denver Nuggets, or did California just help bring their culture of winning to Colorado? I say this as one who is not fan.
Speaker 5:I want nothing to do with that slander. The reason that the Denver Nuggets are great was not because of California. It was because of Serbia and Canada, nikola Jogic and Jamal Murray. That's why we have a great player in the universe on our team.
Speaker 2:Truth, truth, and we're about to have a few former Canadian pros come on the show to talk all about Canada basketball. So we'll. We'll get into that on another day, but I do want to ask we could talk all day about the NBA, but, as one who loved basketball yourself, we both went to Colorado State. You played a lot of great pickup games there, some including some other legends like Becky Hammond but you didn't go to the NBA for one reason or another. I think your sister actually got a lot closer than you did. On that, that's another story for another day. But you yourself, what happened and how did you become the packaging pastor? Walk us through that, adam.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it was a pretty normal journey Most people might take. So I went to the Colorado State, the Colorado State University, the Harvard, the Rockies and yes, I've heard yeah.
Speaker 5:And I studied business and then I got out of college and I became a pastor I worked at on campus for a ministry called the navigators and I was a youth pastor at my church and got married right out of school. So I've been married for 20 years to my one wife and we have five kids and it was it was great. And then, and she was a she was a teacher and when she was pregnant with my son, aj, who's now 16 years old, she was like, hey, I think I want to, I think I want to stay home and raise him. And I was like, yeah, it sounds like a great idea. And I was raising support. If you've ever Done full-time vault, like fundraising for ministry work, it's hard, it's really hard. And I was making $1,200 a month and our mortgage was about $1,000 a month and so I Was gonna just go get a second job and work a ton of hours just to make it happen. But my uncle actually called me up, who lives in San Diego and runs still runs a company called peak packaging it's like my last name and said hey, I heard you're looking for a job, you want to come out here and work for me? And I was like it's gonna be tough to move to North County, san Diego. But yeah, you know what, and it was amazing, we were there for three years but I didn't. I didn't fall in love with the industry then. I didn't like love packaging. I liked my job. I had a good job. I'm still, you know, close with my boss. I was texting with my buddy, isaac Valverde, who worked there. We were texting last night after the Nuggets game. So I'm still close with people who are there.
Speaker 5:But I moved back to Colorado Springs, to where I'm from. I'd start a church and I thought that's because that's what I kind of wanted to do was just be a pastor. I wanted to preach, I wanted to, you know, study the Bible and preach the word and be an evangelist, like that's what I want to do. So but I got a job, stayed in the packaging industry just so we could get this church off the ground, and I started to realize I Got to do the things I wanted to do in an industry that had nobody doing it.
Speaker 5:Nobody was really speaking, you know, nobody was Doing the things that I enjoyed in this great industry. And I started to kind of connect the dots like, oh, I can be an evangelist and a pastor. You know, in this industry and on behalf of this industry, working with people from all walks of life across the I've been able to travel the world speaking and meeting people and in almost every continent. So Once I realized that, I stayed at the church I'm still actively involved in in my church here in Salt Lake City. We moved here about five years ago and so that's. That's a very condensed version of it, but yeah, business school pastor, packaging in packaging industry, just like everybody would do it.
Speaker 2:Wow. So why the podcast? You guys became a podcast host and tell me about that. How did you get into being the host of the people of packaging podcast?
Speaker 5:Yeah, well, number one I love alliterations, and so I also love 90s hip-hop music, and so I wanted to be able to have people say like, yeah, I'm down with POP.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know me.
Speaker 5:So that was kind of my my, my thing. And you know, if you get into like reformation doctrine, like naughty by nature, is sort of like Part of like evangelical Christian doctrine, that's a really deep cut that we won't go down, we don't let's, let's pull back from that. Yeah, so I was hanging out with with a buddy of mine, ted. We were at a show in New York City called Lux Pack and which is the luxury packaging conference, and we were just chatting and having a drink. We're actually talking about hip-hop music. He was a hip-hop producer and DJ and I was like, hey, do you listen to podcasts? And this was five years ago. So podcasts were like around then. Obviously they've been around for a while. And we looked and I'm going through it was, it was only Apple podcasts. I'm like who's it, mike, that likes Apple music for the aesthetics, is that?
Speaker 2:what I, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah. So I just looked through Apple music I was like, oh my god, there's no podcast about packaging, and most people they'd be like, of course, who wants to listen to a podcast about packaging? But I knew that it was this fast-growing medium and and I believe in, like blue ocean strategies I've been doing sales for a while. Cold-calling people is obnoxious and annoying and nobody likes it. You still have to do it, but nobody likes it. So I thought, well, what if I started a podcast just to serve the industry, create good content, interview people, give people a platform to share their voice, and Ted had some of the production equipment. So we were just dumb enough to think we could pull it off. So Ted was around for the first few seasons. His life and job got really busy and I just kept kept it going. So we're right around 200 episodes and about four little over four years.
Speaker 3:Wow, that's awesome. So how did you find these people that you are bringing on to your podcast, your guests?
Speaker 5:Yeah, there's a little bit of a system to it. So I didn't just go home and you know, download the anchor app and start interviewing people though some people do that, right, and there you know, there's no, there's nothing wrong with that. But I Was also simultaneously building my presence on LinkedIn. So by that time I had been posting every day on LinkedIn for about three years. So I had been Building on social media in my industry. When no one was building on social media was gathering up a community and some followers there who were also a little bit active. But there wasn't a whole lot of people who were active on LinkedIn in my industry then. But I had their first connection.
Speaker 5:So I knew, hey, if we start this podcast, I can use it like an automation tool to just send out a note. That wasn't like hey, will you book some time on my calendar? Or here's this PDF about how great I am. It's like hey, I started a podcast about the packaging industry. Would you mind listening to it, giving me some feedback and sharing a guest? That you might think would be great. And I sent that out to probably 2,000 packaging engineers across the United States because that is a job. You can get a doctorate in packaging engineering, and so I just sent it out to a bunch of people and got a ton of great guests ideas to come on and took that list and Just started Going through it. Interviewing people calls.
Speaker 2:Yep, wow. Now, once you go down this rabbit hole of getting guests and you're trying to find, like, the best way to make content from Really nothing, what was that process like? How did you come up with an outline in the format of your show and then a framework that could last for four years?
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's a really good question. The other questions were terrible, but this one, this one, he's like it's been 15 minutes and one second about time we got to something decent on this show. I was funny.
Speaker 2:Like first off, I wouldn't waste the first 14 minutes talking about what she did.
Speaker 5:Secondly, we're very critical show here when somebody says that to me when you know, because I'm usually on the other side of the mic here and I'm interviewing and they go. Actually that's a really good question. I'm like we've been talking for 15 minutes Like we're not good.
Speaker 2:You say actually like I'm surprised You're not completely incompetent.
Speaker 5:Actually the food was pretty good. It's like low expectations. So we planned out the first few episodes and we said let's just ask these questions. And there were you know kind of four questions Tell us about your story. You know what if you could wave a magic wand? What would you fix about the packaging industry If you could go back in your career? What's some advice you give to your younger self or anyone who's getting started out? So it was very kind of programmatic.
Speaker 5:We did that for a while and that helped. It helped me get comfortable as an interviewer. I'd never done it before. It helped to calm people's nerves coming on because I could say here are the exact questions you can prepare to answer these questions. And they were like okay, because we're just not interviewed in our industry ever, and so that was useful.
Speaker 5:I don't do that anymore. We just have a very organic conversation. A lot of the stuff still comes out, but I don't even have like a direction where I want to steer the conversation. I start with a blank notepad, I write things down, I ask questions off of their answers. It allows me to practice active listening, which is an amazing skill set for salespeople that very few practice, and so I get the ability to practice active listening, asking good questions, with no agenda attached to it, which has helped me a lot when I do like. Discovery calls for my full time job, where I'm a Senior Vice President of Sales for a company called Myers Printing. So that was unintentional. I didn't start the podcast back. I need to be better at sales. It's just happened that anytime you practice something, you get better at it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's something I hear about a lot from salespeople where they say, yeah, practice good listening. A great thing you can say is just follow up by saying tell me more about that, which I've always felt like. Well, that's probably like. I never feel like tell me more about that ever organically comes up in conversation. So I'm glad you talked about that. So what is one tip if people haven't listened to the People of Packaging Podcast Yet but they're listening to this podcast today and say, well, what's some sort of tip you have for active listening After all the episodes you've done? What's something you can do to organically continue and build the conversation out of what you just heard someone say?
Speaker 5:I think the it's and these are just tools and tips, but have an actual pen or pencil and an actual notepad. I mean, this is sitting by my desk at all times because there's a connection between your brain and in your hand and so when you're having to write things down instead of I mean, you can still do the gong and the chorus and all the all the call recording and stuff like that. But when you have that connection, it forces you to pay attention and forces you to listen and it doesn't allow your mind to wander and I think it really tethers you to the moment, into the conversation. It's it so. So that's a way that is kind of a I don't know a hack, I guess to to help you get better at that. But if, if that's not helpful, if that's not working for you, whatever it might be, you know it's.
Speaker 5:It's really just a mindset approach of like, do you consider the other person better than yourself? Are you willing to serve them rather than be served? Like if you're in sales, you really should be a have a servant heart when you come to that call. So think, when you before you, before I start a call, I'd just try to think of myself like, okay, I'm here to serve this person, I want them to have whatever outcome it is that they desire at the end of this call. I don't want my outcomes, I want their outcomes, and it's my job to help discover what those outcomes are that they're trying to get to. And if that's not my company, that's tremendous. It's still a successful call If I have guided them and help to ask questions to get them on the journey that they want to get to, not where I'm trying to get, because that's manipulative. If I'm just trying to get them to where I want them to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 5:It's a little bit of a mindset, a little bit of a tool.
Speaker 4:So, adam, I got a question for you, Just kind of doing a little bit of research prior to our podcast. I sat down and watched all 200 of your podcast episodes and no, no, I did try to familiarize myself a little bit with your content though. I watched your TED Talk and you're clearly very passionate about what you do. It seems like one area in particular you have a lot of interest in is kind of the green initiatives and kind of the value it has on the world as a whole. Like I saw you're talking about, they're able to make plastics, I think, out of carbon, biodegradable plastic bottles. Like I said, you talk a lot about the green initiatives and it seems like you really light up when you talk about that.
Speaker 4:And I guess one question I have as a consumer and maybe you could shed a little bit of light on this but for me not so much the examples I gave, but a lot of the green initiatives for these big corporations to me they seem to be more in the benefit of the corporation rather than the consumer. Like when I was younger I remember H&M they had like a trade back policy and you would buy their clothes at full price. Then you could trade it in for green initiatives and they'd give you I don't know 5, 10% off your next purchase, with an expiration date attached, and so it's like to me that doesn't really seem to be benefiting the consumer. It seems to be one a tax write off for the company palps their ESG score and they can recycle their own product and then sell it at a premium afterwards. So it's like I don't know. I mean, are these green initiatives legit or are they just truly about capitalism and making more money off the consumer?
Speaker 5:Tell me more about that. I'm just.
Speaker 4:It's super awkward. Yeah, I don't know that.
Speaker 5:I tried it right there. Oh man, it's actually a pretty hot button topic within the packaging industry, and being in the industry is great because you're also a consumer. We get to see both sides. We get to see how the sausage is made, and then we get to enjoy it and eat it. That's a weird analogy. I don't know if that it made sense, that's actually just going to be the audiogram right there.
Speaker 2:It's about four seconds and that's we're going to put on a big social.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:It was bad, it was really bad?
Speaker 5:The answer is there's a lot to sustainability and green initiatives that the consumer never actually sees. That 100% only benefit the company and that is great. It's actually fantastic. So I'll give you a random example that you may or may not have noticed, but Sprite changed their bottle from green to clear recently. They're getting rid of their green Sprite bottles globally. That was actually a big change. You might not think it was, but it was a big change for Sprite and they had a sustainability initiative to it.
Speaker 5:The reason is because Coke is trying to get to a post-consumer recycled content level to meet some of their goals, and they couldn't do it with the green plastic, because when that green it's called PET is recycled, it gets into the mixed recycling and it doesn't come back out green. It comes back out random colors. So when it's clear, it's only recycled with clear plastics, and so clear recycled plastic is then turned back into clear or it's also sold to other people who want to put a different color in it. Whatever it is, so clear PET recycled plastic has a lot of value, and so Coke could then control the inputs better. They could have a sustainable supply chain in order to meet their initiatives for encouraging recycling and getting more products. So it's great. In that sense, capitalism was fantastic. It's working and nobody would really think okay, whatever, it's clear, but it's a pretty big deal with our industry.
Speaker 5:All that to say, there are plenty of things that are only done for marketing and they have almost zero positive impact in many cases, and negative ones. So an example of this would be plastic shopping bags versus reusable cotton totes. So some states were like no more plastic shopping bags or getting rid of all. The Colorado did this, and I went to a check at a Walmart and I'm like where's what I do is carry all this like, no, no, no, you need your own shopping bag. I'm like I live in Utah. I wish you'd have a sign or something that said that before I got here. And so then I had to go buy this reusable shopping bag.
Speaker 5:Well, the New York Times did a study on reusable shopping bags, and those things have to be reused. It's like 2100 times, and a lot of the cotton comes from the Uyghur people in China who are being. You know, there's a ton of political problems that are happening and there's some really negative ESG scores and they are not recyclable at all. And so it's like, yeah, it's obnoxious when this plastic ends up in the ocean. We don't want that. It's really bad and it's terrible and there's a lot of it there. But is it any better to have people being mistreated and in all sorts of you know? That actually creates ESG problems in those situations. And so it's like, yeah, it sounds good to be like no more plastic bags, only reusable bags. But then when you actually do the math, you're like this is annoying for the consumer and it's bad for the environment and it costs us a lot more money. Who said this was a good idea? So don't get me started on straws.
Speaker 4:Can I follow up on that? Yeah, what's the deal with straws, man? I'm sorry, I love turtles but like no, it's yeah the paper straws are the worst, they're just the worst.
Speaker 5:And I think that it's like you know. I mean Starbucks, for example. Starbucks did a great thing where they basically made a lid that did not require a straw. Right, their lids before that required a straw, so they re-engineered their lid, which is part of the packaging industry. It's not just Apple that can. That you're drinking currently is considered packaging probably made by Ball Corporation, which sponsors Ball Arena, which is where the Denver Nuggets NBA champions are, and we're back.
Speaker 4:It comes full circle, full circle, man Was that another skill you picked up with Segways.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, no, I just own one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there you go yeah.
Speaker 5:So the straw thing is just a. It quite literally is like a straw man argument. It's like yeah yeah, this is not. This is there's no bearing on sustainability. There's a lot of things that are really important around sustainability and packaging, and and we're we're doing our best in the industry. I just went to a conference called Circularity in Seattle. Some rad stuff that's happening. Paper straws is not rad.
Speaker 4:So can I like, since you're an industry expert, can I quote you and going forward and be like Adam said? You know these are pointless.
Speaker 5:All right. No, you can send them. Send them my way. Yeah, I would. I would be more than happy to talk people through that and let them know like it's not doing there's. It has a zero impact on negative impact on the environment, whether you use a paper straw or you use a plastic straw. That's it, yeah, pressure point.
Speaker 4:Adam, I got another question for you. Like I'm beyond us. Packaging seems like kind of stale content and wow, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:We just grants and sultans intelligence.
Speaker 3:Now you're saying oh wow just wait till it's a project's turn Gosh.
Speaker 4:No, I don't mean to insult you, but it just it's fine, whatever. It does seem like very niche content.
Speaker 4:And it sounds like you know, in regards to getting guests, you're doing just fine. You're putting out at least an episode a week, like you are on track and you're dedicated and you see some sort of purpose in this podcast, and so I guess my question is like what? How are you getting engagement and what does your engagement look like outside of just the experts that you bring on and maybe they're small audience that they bring with them?
Speaker 5:Yeah, so the packaging industry. If all I was doing was just talking about the barrier properties of foil in stand-up pouches and the validity of recycled polypropylene, which is fun to say, I have honest calls where it's like we just need more recycled pee-pee and it's great. It's a really fun conversation to have, like after your pee-pee problem, it's like well, Get all sorts of answers you weren't looking for.
Speaker 4:This is a conference call.
Speaker 5:There is actually something called oriented polypropylene, which is OPP, and so then you can also be not only down with POP, you can also be down with OPP and down with BOP. So you could sort of nerd out about that for a while if you really wanted to, but I don't Because of my pastoral background. I like packaging, but I genuinely love people, and there are people in the packaging industry all over the world by the hundreds of thousands. It is a trillion-dollar industry. Every single thing in that room got to that place because of packaging, and then the packaging that was necessary to be made like in order to get the packaging to the place where it's packaging, it needed packaging. So the packaging needed packaging in order to be packaging, so that it could get to where. It's crazy the amount of packaging that nobody sees that is required in this industry, and behind that is people and humans and stories and there's beauty and it is from my faith. I believe that everybody has a divine image about them and I love to bring that out and allow them to share it.
Speaker 5:The packaging industry is just where I am, but I would do this if I was in HVAC, if I was in podcast.
Speaker 5:What is your guys'?
Speaker 5:Podcast Publications, production yeah, production, whatever it was, I would do it because people are involved and I really do love to care about people and so the content doesn't stay stale, because people are dynamic and they're interesting and they're wonderful and they're uniquely and divinely created and I get to pull that out and have a conversation and meet really rad people who also are doing really amazing things in the packaging industry.
Speaker 5:So that's where the it does get to my audience, which is of a decent size. I might get around 500 to 1,000 downloads per episode. People ask me is that a lot? I'm like I have no, I legitimately have no idea, but it's a lot for our industry and I get opportunities to go to trade shows, I get to go speak to people, I get to train people, I get to do TED Talks, I get to write books and all that sort of stuff. So I would say it's no less stale than sports and politics, because that could be really stale, but it's not because we choose to find stories in those, and I'm just choosing to find stories in my industry.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's a solid answer. I like that. Thank you, yeah, and you're.
Speaker 2:You approve me. I was like you know this sounds kind of boring. Actually I'm like never mind, I do what you do by opinion. It's not true?
Speaker 5:You know, packaging podcasts are so slow and dangerous behind the wheel, still cancer, reverse Gosh.
Speaker 4:Don't you go dying on me.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, I've been podcasting for a while and this is a hard thing to segue out of before we. I'm going to try to not insult you after my last two co-hosts, clearly of just I don't know what kind of days we've had over here, but they're.
Speaker 4:Look out.
Speaker 2:I'm just kind of nervous for when the podcast You're coming at them. I'm kind of nervous for when this thing ends Like this is you being nice right now? What's going to happen when Adam leaves and it's just me with you too, through?
Speaker 5:him. So, hey, I'm untouchable right now. My emotions are. I'm still writing a very amazing Denver Nuggets High right now.
Speaker 2:Again, you don't know when this is coming out, so let's.
Speaker 1:We have to clarify if this was released in.
Speaker 2:Well, this was recorded June 13th of 2023 for. So just in case Yoke gets to something crazy in Serbia next week, he's not.
Speaker 2:He's fine, so let's go somewhere happy. So to end this podcast since you've done this podcast there are so many or since you've done your own podcast. There's so many YouTube channels out there about packaging. Now, specifically, unboxing and unboxing reviews, and that's kind of a funny thing where I remember when I got really into YouTube and whatever, it was 2013, maybe there was a few, but in today's time, that's its own thing, and they really break down the box and the whole experience of what it's like to when you open up the box and how they cut it open, with the different types of tape that are put on and break down the paper that it's used, and so there's all of that and it's not just like it's this unique niche content. There are millions of people that subscribe to watch that and experience it.
Speaker 2:So I guess my question is is there any company out there where you're when it comes to from a, b to C standpoint, where they've just got packaging down pat? I know for myself I think that's Lego. Just the entire experience. It's all about the packaging from A to B, and you're involved every step of the way. So who, for you, is that company that's just got packaging down perfectly?
Speaker 5:Oh, perfect, nobody, Nobody has packaging down perfectly for sure. There is always room for improvement. Lego they do a phenomenal job for sure with packaging. Apple's another example we've had. This is a really bizarre one, but I do love sneakers and so it's been funny to see Nike's transition in packaging. So they did their trash space, hippie shoes, and those did not have a. The box was also the shipping box. So the shipping you didn't have the shoe box inside of a shipping box. That created less waste, less carbon, less cost, all that stuff. But now even their shipping box is like if you buy a pair of Jordans or whatever, or a pair of Nikola Yokoches, he doesn't have his own shoe. But so you open the box up and it's got what's called an auto bottom, so it will like fold clothes real quickly and it has a tear strip on it that you can tear off if you want to return the shoes. And so they created this great customer experience from a shipping box that is easy to fold up, so there's no tape on the bottom of the box. You just have to take it and you just shut it closed and you can store it, and then, if you need to ship your shoes, you pop it back open, you put your shoes in, you don't have to get your own tape out. It's this fully sustained experience. So I really thought that was Really cool.
Speaker 5:I will give another one, which is liquid death water. If you've seen liquid death water, they have water in an aluminum can and that's it. That seems really boring, but, man, their packaging and their branding and their marketing is on Point. I mean they are like rebellious marketers. They made Candles like out of chopped off hands. They did a collaboration with Martha Stewart. I mean they just they kill the branding and because packaging and branding are so closely linked together, they never talk about the fact that their packaging is aluminum and aluminum is infinitely recyclable and there's a great sustainability story. They just make really fun, exciting branded products and they deliver on their brand promise over and over and over and over again. So that would be another, you know, kind of smaller example, but Nike and liquid death is.
Speaker 2:It would be my two well, something I got to say about the second point there. I actually asked you this question almost three and a half years ago and there are a lot of instances where I'll ask someone I've had on before on a different show, same question, and I Will say, maybe maybe one other time I've gotten the same answer, which is, like you know, people are dynamic, but I think that's pretty cool to see like you are dynamic, you've grown. But there's this one you're just, you're gonna stick loyal with until they change their packaging liquid death. I didn't look, I'll be honest. I didn't look it up then. But today I'm gonna look into liquid death, because what if we visited it? Clearly it's made an impression. I've got to look it up.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's actually more of a testimony to their Sustained branding brilliance. Where that is? I look I. I deal with packaging all the time. I make tick-tock videos about it. I work in the industry and when I'm asked the question, the first thing that's hop on my mind is their company. That's pretty powerful when you think about their branding cuz I didn't even know that I said that answer three and a half years ago.
Speaker 2:I didn't go Review okay, I'm doing it right now. I'm looking it up. This is kind of become Joe Rogan. This honestly looks like beer. If I were to see it Like, I wouldn't think this is water, this is crazy.
Speaker 3:Why did you're? I think that's in their advertisements too, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah Well it also if and now there's this. No, you know there's no alcohol movement and so liquid death is in bars, and so you walk around a bar with a can of liquid death and you feel like you belong in the Rebellious stain of the bar, but you're not drinking alcohol, you're just drinking sparkling or still water. But you're, and you don't have a, you know, a pariet or an Evian or whatever it is. You're drinking death metal water.
Speaker 3:It's yeah, I was just thinking how it looks so metal and then when you started saying that there was like this kind of rebellion against alcohol and everything, it just took me back to like the late 2000s, where there was a straight-edge hardcore scene and everything where people are rejecting the band as I lay dying was my neighbor in oh.
Speaker 5:Then well, I've got arrested for trying to murder his wife.
Speaker 2:That's what we have, adam, here. What does packaging look like for murder?
Speaker 5:Oh. Oddly enough, though, I have a friend who made packaging Brown, like brown box material for coffins to transport bodies in the bottom of passenger planes, because well, a lot of people where they're where they die are not buried there. You don't want to put like a full casket together until they, so he made boxes for these like caskets to transport bodies.
Speaker 4:And then we're talking about transporting bodies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the packaging of the packaging and it's being packaged in a plane.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's just. Yeah, it's ever Human packaging for transport through the air.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's that. That is. That is something I don't again. This, this podcast, is testing my ability to segue into and out of things. So for people who want to package themselves with a wealth of information that is, the people of packaging podcast when do they go? Mr Adam peak, the packaging pastor, oh, man, there are so many great places.
Speaker 5:If you want to Connect with me, you can go to packaging pastor calm and it has all my stuff there. It's got my links and the TEDx talk and all those things. If you want to connect with my friend Corey he hosts the sustainable packaging podcast with Corey Connors or a value Matos, he hosts the package design unboxed. There's a whole bunch of other people who are super well or super just well informed and create a ton of great content, mostly on LinkedIn. So if you really wanted to, if you had a question, reach out to me on LinkedIn. I probably know somebody. If you want to ask about paper straws, I can talk. Put you in touch with paper straw people. If you want to talk about possible packaging and Recycling and all like I just I'm happy to help direct you to anybody. So there you go, awesome.
Speaker 4:Fantastic.
Speaker 2:Adam, as always, it is a sincere pleasure getting to talk to you. I do hope you'll be able to join us. I think we're gonna be in Vancouver for a basketball tournament next year. I hope you'll be able to be there and I hope that when you and I inevitably play that you won't end up beating me as bad as you did in Becky Hammond at Colorado State, that you give me at least a solid Chance. You don't throw me in the post, otherwise I do know you have knee issues and I'm scrapping my one warning 19 year old Adam and 42 year old Adam are two different basketball players.
Speaker 5:Yeah, don can play defense. The other one Still likes to shoot threes. Yeah, it's about it.
Speaker 2:Well, we'll have a great time nonetheless. Adam, thank you so much for joining this week's episode of the weekly best tape. For all the other folks who want more information on our Podcasts, just potponycom. We got a tap for the weekly best tape all sorts of information. If you like podcasts, you want us to produce a podcast, or you want someone to produce a podcast.
Speaker 1:We know some people, so feel free to also set up time. Talk to us.
Speaker 2:Otherwise, look forward to seeing you next week on the next episode of the weekly this tape, see you.